Interesting new “what if” for churches as they rediscover their mission. Much more appropriate than the old 70s question of “If your church burned down...”
Peace,

I don’t think I’d be comfortable allowing my teenager to drive to youth events during the evening hours with a large party bar across the street.

But it’s the residents of that neighborhood I feel sorry for.  We’ve had similar issues relating to bars in our area.  These drunks cause all kinds of mayhem in the neighborhood, making noise, urinating in people’s yards, and so forth.  The church should stand with the neighborhood; these are part of their mission field as well.

The church may want lost at their front door, but I don’t think that the retirees and families who live around there do.  A better ministry to bar goers would be to offer free transportation home, and leave them on their front steps with a business card, phone number, and offer for a ride to church Sunday morning.

Let’s see:

Half-dressed women
booze
horny men

To escape..........oh there is no escape. Embrace the culture. Change the culture.

I seriously doubt what happens at Coyote is much different than what many of them thar fine Presbyterians watch nightly on TV.

This is a great discussion.  We’re almost three years old and we meet in a school with no thought whatsoever to having a building.  But I can relate to thist story because my wife started a ministry in our church called “Love Wins” that is an outreach to the two strip clubs in our county.  My wife initially wanted to find ways to love the ladies who danced there, but it’s turned into relationship building all throughout the clubs.  My wife brings gift bags once a month to pass out to the dancers. 

What’s been incredible, though is how we’ve been able to partner in ministry with one particular club.  This club has raised money for our church to help serve a needy family and even joined our church on a service project to a nearby homeless shelter. 

At the service project, I had an amazing conversation with the owner of the club.  He told me about churches in our denomination protesting his club and other clubs in the downtown Kansas City area.  There was a story on the news showing the protestors, one was holding a sign that read, “we’re praying for you.” Which seriously cracked me up! 

But this story points to the question that Christ-followers have to ask themselves, “do we protest” or “do we love.” Anytime we hold up a sign or try to pass legislation to force people to live the way we want them to live, we push them a bit farther away from Jesus.

The way I see it, any time the world comes knocking on the door of the church, then the church has an opportunity and an obligation to show the love of Christ.
That’s how we’re handling the mosque that’s going up next door.

I would only hope that I would be worthy enough to have a church surrounded by bars.

Donnie:

First, thank you for working on reaching the lost.  I hope that in giving things like gift bags to the strippers, you are also giving the full Gospel message.

“Anytime we hold up a sign or try to pass legislation to force people to live the way we want them to live, we push them a bit farther away from Jesus.”

I have to disagree with this comment.  By this logic, any law that echoes the Ten Commandments, or the Two Great Commandments should be stripped off the record.  This would include adultery, theft, perjury, and murder (abortion).  We have to stand for what is right, no matter what the situation, even if it “forces people to live the way want them to live.”

--
CS

Our doing right does not require legislation or picketing. Legislating morality attempts to gain conformity without Jesus.

For all our laws............how is it working out for the morality police? Need more laws?

While certainly there can be a consensus social code that all agree upon (natural law perhaps) attempting to regulate every aspect of life by law is unwise AND unproductive.

If the atheists were the majority, would you still be in favor of them having the opportunity, “law wise” to do what they thought was right? Atheists have a moral code just like Christians. Which code shall we follow? It is not enough to say “the Bible says so.” The postmoderns say “so what.”

The less laws we have the better.

Anthony, yes “develop a relationship”!  That’s what Christ modeled when his human feet walked the earth.

There are probably just as many child molesters sitting in Church as at a strip club.

It is a faulty notion to suggest that adult entertainment breeds child molesters. It is a wild leap to go from women’s breasts to molesting children. If that is the case I suspect a good number of men on this forum should be locked up by the precrime division........

I worry more about the perverts IN the Church than I do outside of it.

As a youth pastor this would make me nervous.  I would be afraid of having night games outside with horny drunk men and probably some women across the street.  Fights, etc I definitly would not want that bar near our church.
Though I see others point of view too.  I would not start a protest probably though.  I would try to get a relationship with the owner without going in the bar.  I think it would shock the owner of the bar for the church to not be the one’s protesting. 
This is a tough one I would in my opinion require much prayer.

I hate to burst the zoning theory bubble, but their was actually several bars at the location prior to Coyote Ugly coming along. 

Here’s a follow up article to show that they just didn’t want this bar at the location.

<a href="http://www.charlotte.com/109/story/642834.html>http://www.charlotte.com/109/story/642834.html</a>

Bruce,

I think I hear what you’re saying. but please keep in mind that “legislating morality” is part of almost every law on the books right now.

We have laws prohibiting minors from purchasing porn, prohibiting prostitution, and child molestation, as well as laws against theft and murder.  I think all of us would agree that these are good laws regulating moral behavior.

Can you imagine the outcry if the laws prohibiting minors from purchasing tobacco products were to be removed?  The populace would be outraged.  Why?  Because it’s immoral to market addictive substances to children.  This obviously has a moral base to it.

We have speed limits in school zones because of the belief that it’s good to keep children from being run over.  That’s a law based on a moral premise and it has nothing to do with whether it’s in the Bible or not.

Even some of our tax law has a moral base: just ask the politicians who talk about “fairness” in who should be taxed and how much they should be taxed.  Isn’t “fairness” a term steeped in a sense of morality?

You ask whether Christians would be in favor of atheists creating law.  This happens all over the world right now, and was the case when the New Testament was written (not necessarily atheism - but definitely anti-Christian), when Paul tells us to be subject to the laws of the land.  It’s not an issue of whether we would be in favor of it or not.  If the secular government forces a law on us, we are subject to it, as long as it doesn’t contradict Scripture.

My point here is that the whole “legislating morality” argument is not a very valid one.

Second, I really don’t think you can compare churches and strip clubs.  Are child molesters possibly present in both?  Undoubtedly.  And you are right to point out that we should be on our guard against them.

But one context promotes healthy sexual relations between a husband and wife.  The other promotes unhealthy sexual relations outside of that bond.  One says “enjoy God’s gift within these boundaries.” The other says, “Go out and have all the sex you can because you’re just a hormone-driven bag of bones with no need for self-control.”

I’d say that’s a huge difference.

Brian L.